John P. St. John (police officer)
| John P. St. John | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1918 |
| Died | May 3, 1995 (aged 76–77) Los Angeles County, California |
| Other names | Jigsaw John |
| Awards |
 - LAPD Distinguished Service Medalnumerous commendations for performance |
| Police career | |
| Department | Los Angeles Police Department |
| Country | United States |
| Years of service | 1942–1993 |
| Rank | Sworn in as an Officer - 1942 - Police Officer 3 - Detective I - Detective II (Sergeant) - Detective III (Sergeant) |
| Other work | Technical advisor |
John P. St. John (1918 – May 3, 1995), better known as “Jigsaw John”, was an American police officer and Los Angeles Police Department Homicide detective, renowned for his investigations of many of Los Angeles’s highest-profile murder cases. Upon his retirement in 1993, St. John held the highest seniority on the LAPD with 51 years of service, a distinction that earned him the privilege of carrying LAPD Detective badge No. 1.
St. John served 43 years as a homicide detective, beginning in 1949, when he was assigned to the Department’s Homicide Division (merged to Robbery-Homicide in 1969). One of his first assignments was the notorious Black Dahlia murder, a case he worked on-and-off until his retirement in 1993. His nickname, Jigsaw John, originated in his early career with a dismemberment murder he solved in Griffith Park in which the victim had been cut up jigsaw-style. The moniker caught on because of his ability to piece clues together in difficult cases, resulting in many arrests and convictions. He became an authority on serial murders and worked 12 of them, including the 1950s serial killer Harvey Glatman, Night Stalker Richard Ramirez, the Hillside Stranglers, the Southside Slayer, and the William Bonin Freeway Killer case. In the latter, acting on a tip, St. John tracked down the Downey, CA truck driver and, on June 11, 1980, his team captured Bonin in the act of sodomizing a victim. The killer had his murder kit in the vehicle.
St. John was renowned within the Robbery-Homicide Division (RHD) for his amazing memory, and dogged determination in working the minutiae that led to solving murders and getting convictions. However, as criminal science became more sophisticated he kept up with the times taking advantage of modern scientific crime analysis, forensic techniques and the benefits of a new computerized age. Still, at times he simply fell back on that “dogged determination”. In the Bonin case, although the killer was in custody, the DA’s office was having trouble building a case, until one day Bonin received a letter from the mother of one of his victims begging him to tell her what happened to her son. He confessed to that and all of the other murders. As the trial date neared, St. John approached the deputy DA on the case and said, "I've got to tell you something. It wasn't the mother who wrote that letter."
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